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Terminology

A voi(e)vod(e) (literally, "leader of warriors" or "war leader", equivalent to the Latin "Dux Exercituum" and the German "Herzog") was originally a military commander who stood, in a state's structure, next to the ruler. Later the word came to denote an administrative official.

Words for "voivodeship" in various languages include the Polish: województwo; the Romanian: voievodat; the Serbian: vojvodina (војводина), vojvodstvo (војводство) or vojvodovina (војводовина); the Hungarian: vajdaság; the Belarusian: ваяводства (vajаvodstva); the Lithuanian: vaivadija. Some of these words, or variants of them, may also be used in English.

Named for the word for "voivodeship" is the autonomous Serbian province of Vojvodina.

Though the word "voivodeship" (other spellings are "voievodship" and "voivodship") appears in English dictionaries such as the OED and Webster's, it is not in common general usage, and voivodeships in Poland and elsewhere are frequently referred to as "provinces".[1] Depending on context, historic voivodeships may also be referred to as "duchies", "palatinates" (the Latin word "palatinatus" was used for a voivodeship in Poland), "administrative districts" or "regions".